Liberty. It’s a simple idea, but it’s also the linchpin of a complex system of values and practices: justice, prosperity, responsibility, toleration, cooperation, and peace. Many people believe that liberty is the core political value of modern civilization itself, the one that gives substance and form to all the other values of social life. They’re called libertarians.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Rolling back the nanny state

Live free and pay more tax

The need for revenue has encouraged
cash-strapped state and local governments to scrap restrictions on
alcohol sales, gambling and even fireworks

WASHINGTON, DC
|

LAST week the state of Washington began auctioning the licences to
167 of the liquor stores it runs. By June 1st Washington will be out of
the liquor business altogether, freeing private businesses to sell
spirits in the state for the first time since Prohibition. Last year,
despite dire warnings about corporate profiteers, drunk drivers and
surging policing costs, voters in the state approved the privatisation
in a referendum by 59% to 41%.

Something similar happened in Georgia on March 6th, when voters
lifted the ban on sales of alcohol on Sundays in 24 of the 27 cities and
counties that had put the issue on the ballot, alongside the state’s
presidential primary. Since Georgia first allowed local governments to
hold referendums on Sunday sales last year, voters have approved the
practice in 129 out of 154 instances, often by huge margins. Last year
in Texas, attempts to turn “dry” localities “wet” succeeded on 57 out of
64 occasions. In West Virginia meanwhile, the state legislature has
just passed a bill allowing liquor stores to hold tasting sessions. It
is the ninth state to approve such a measure since 2009. “The world is
getting wetter,” exults Frank Coleman of the Distilled Spirits Council
of the United States (DISCUS), an industry group.
It is not just drinkers who are benefiting from a loosening of
puritanical regulations around America. Massachusetts last year became
the 24th state to allow casinos in some form. Ohio did the same in 2009,
and Maryland did in 2008. Maine, not to be outdone, has just issued its
first casino licence, and also lifted a ban on fireworks at the
beginning of the year. Rhode Island legalised fireworks in 2010, and
will hold a referendum in November about expanding gambling.
This trend is not, sadly, the result of a sudden renunciation of
paternalism by state governments. Rather, it stems from the states’ dire
fiscal straits in the aftermath of the recession. “States are looking
for a source of revenue beyond [directly] taxing their residents,” says
Holly Wetzel of the American Gaming Association, which represents
gambling interests. Mandy Rafool of the National Conference of State
Legislatures puts it more bluntly: “States have been so desperate over
the last few years that they’re looking at everything.”
Officials in Massachusetts, for example, have suggested that the
three casinos to be built there could bring in as much as $400m a year,
plus $300m in initial licensing fees. By the same token, local
governments hope that lifting bans on booze or fireworks will bring in
big dollops of sales and excise tax. When Michigan approved the sale of
new types of fireworks at the beginning of last year, the legislature
estimated the change would bring in an extra $5.5m a year in taxes and
fees. A similar argument is made for extending licensing hours, or
allowing tastings: that they will boost sales, bringing in extra tax
dollars. Dannel Malloy, the governor of Connecticut, who in January
proposed lifting price controls and allowing Sunday sales among other
reforms, argues that they will yield $6m-11m in new revenue, and help
return as much as $570m in sales now lost to neighbouring states.
But despite all these initiatives, many parts of America are still
lumbered with a bizarre and complex array of restrictions on drinking,
gambling and the like that seem entirely out of keeping with a country
that proudly calls itself the land of the free. Even after Washington
leaves the club, 17 states will still maintain a government monopoly on
either the sale or distribution of spirits, or both. In Maryland it is
actually certain counties that run their own liquor stores, monopolising
sales of even wine and beer.
Many states, especially in the South, remain a confusing patchwork of
wet, dry and “moist” counties, the latter being those that allow sales
of only certain forms of alcohol at certain types of establishment.
There are over 4,000 state and federal laws concerning alcohol, says Mr
Coleman of DISCUS, and another 1,900 were proposed in 2008 alone. Rules
about gambling are an equally perverse mix. Only 12 states have no
casinos of any sort. But several more allow them only on boats or at
racetracks. Another 12 limit gambling to Indian reservations. And four
states still ban fireworks of all kinds.
Not all attempts to liberalise these regimes succeed. Republican
governors in Virginia and Pennsylvania have failed to push through
promised privatisations of state liquor stores, despite their party’s
control of both state legislatures. In Kentucky, the
Republican-controlled Senate squelched the newly re-elected Democratic
governor’s plans to hold a referendum on bringing casinos to the state.
Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Democratic governor, vetoed a bill that would
have permitted only the most innocuous forms of fireworks, such as
sparklers.
Lobby groups for these industries take heart from the fact that the
movement is, at least, all in one direction. No states have
significantly tightened restrictions in recent years. Each easing of the
rules makes the next one more likely, by demonstrating that disaster
does not occur. Despite the steady deregulation of alcohol, for example,
drunk driving and underage drinking are at record lows. And even as
fireworks become more widely available, they are causing fewer injuries.
Yet even the lobbyists are careful not to call too loudly for the
lifting of all strictures. The American Gaming Association says it takes
no position on whether more states should legalise gambling. DISCUS
claims not to mind whether states run their own liquor stores, as long
as they are willing to “modernise” them by allowing tastings, long
hours, a big choice and so on.
Most strikingly, lobbyists and politicians seem to shy away from the
notion that regulation should be trimmed simply in the name of personal
freedom, rather than on practical grounds. The legislature in New
Hampshire (motto: “Live free or die”) recently considered a bill that
would have allowed shops that already had licences to sell beer and wine
to buy spirits in bulk from the state monopoly and resell them. The
sponsor told his fellow lawmakers that by approving the proposal they
would be “promoting limited government” and “enhancing freedoms”. The
state House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, sent
the measure down to defeat, 179-123.